I've seen the console crash a couple times, but I've also had some really odd quirkiness, like only being able to move one machine at a time in the interface ... VERY annoying, especially when I had a nice selection of like, 50 machines.

This just happened to my PC today for the first time ever. I normally use Firefox, and only load IE when I need to do a windows update.

This afternoon I decided to go ahead and do just that and the IE window never opened up. In fact my whole computer practically locked up. It finally let up and windows caught up with everything and opened up IE after about 15 mins, but it was very frustrating.

Originally posted by Althornin:I had bad luck with an upgrade of WSUS 2.0 to 3.0.

We tested the upgrade first on a test system, and it went flawlessly. However, during the upgrade on the production system, a couple of things went wrong:

1) The install failed and rolled back (due to an error installing SelfUpdate).2) Something during the upgrade caused WSUS 3.0 to wax the entire Microsoft SQL Server registry hive, which caused, on the next reboot, the other SQL Servers on this box to fail, which in turn, caused a couple of other things to fail.

WSUS 2.0 could not be redeployed to this machine (fails with an error now, also during SelfUpdate).

Originally posted by Althornin:I had bad luck with an upgrade of WSUS 2.0 to 3.0.

We tested the upgrade first on a test system, and it went flawlessly. However, during the upgrade on the production system, a couple of things went wrong:

1) The install failed and rolled back (due to an error installing SelfUpdate).2) Something during the upgrade caused WSUS 3.0 to wax the entire Microsoft SQL Server registry hive, which caused, on the next reboot, the other SQL Servers on this box to fail, which in turn, caused a couple of other things to fail.

WSUS 2.0 could not be redeployed to this machine (fails with an error now, also during SelfUpdate).

I ran the upgrade on 3 servers. 2 went smooth and one failed. On the one that failed i ended up having to launch the uninstaller from the original install package to get rid of it. Then i was able to install WSUS 3.0 and temporarily set it up to miror another server that usuauly mirrors the one that failed. This allowed me to get my list of approved updates.So anyway, have a backup plan before trying the upgrade...

This problem still persists. I have tried all the suggestions posted before. What I can see now is that svchost stil takes 50% to 90% of the cpu at all times.

What is even more disconcerting is that I have 4 systems that are identical in hardware. One system does not have the problem. So I ghosted the hard drive to the other three. ran newsid on each hard drive, renamed the computers and joined them back in the domain. All of the 3 ghosted computer have the svchost.exe problem, but not the original computer that I use as an image. Using process explorer I can see the following:

So the kernel32.dll seems to be at fault here. In some computers I see two instances and in the others I see three.

dijuremo: Are you also experiencing any slowdowns as a result of the CPU spike? There is a MS blog post linked in this thread that mentions even after the patch you may still see the CPU spike but your system will still be usable.

Originally posted by RicDavis:The ^ doesn't look like the problem the thread discusses. Note you've got svchost taking ~80% of the CPU. With the auto updates problem, it takes all of it.

The problem turned into this after applying the updates because the system was originally very unresponsive. After applying the updates, I also even disabled automatic updates, etc, and now at all times, the CPU usage is between 50% and 99%. So the problem is related because whatever the updates microsoft made, they are just crap!!!

When will someone start a class action lawsuit for lack of productivity, damaged hardware, increased power costs due to cpu running 99% at all times and sysadmin wasted time due to Microsoft's incompetence?

Originally posted by Ciconia:dijuremo: Are you also experiencing any slowdowns as a result of the CPU spike? There is a MS blog post linked in this thread that mentions even after the patch you may still see the CPU spike but your system will still be usable.

The system is responsive as "it should be" (pun intended) according to the MS KB, but the svchost.exe program takes it all constantly non-stop, even with automatic updates disabled (i checked to make sure the service was stopped). And the most amazing thing is that I ghosted this of one computer which has no problem into three other computers and the svchost issue only happens in the other 3 ghosted computers. The hardware is the same in all of the computers, part by part (i put them all together).

Originally posted by Ciconia:dijuremo: Are you also experiencing any slowdowns as a result of the CPU spike? There is a MS blog post linked in this thread that mentions even after the patch you may still see the CPU spike but your system will still be usable.

The system is responsive as "it should be" (pun intended) according to the MS KB, but the svchost.exe program takes it all constantly non-stop, even with automatic updates disabled (i checked to make sure the service was stopped). And the most amazing thing is that I ghosted this of one computer which has no problem into three other computers and the svchost issue only happens in the other 3 ghosted computers. The hardware is the same in all of the computers, part by part (i put them all together).

What happens when you uninstall the update? The CPU spike should go away with Automatic Updates not running regardless of the patch level but I would be curios how things are by rolling back the patch. You might have something else going on. Spyware? Bad driver?

What happens when you uninstall the update? The CPU spike should go away with Automatic Updates not running regardless of the patch level but I would be curios how things are by rolling back the patch. You might have something else going on. Spyware? Bad driver?

The machines are running Symantec Antivirus Enterprise Version 10.2 with latest definitions. I have installed trojan hunter, spy bot and adaware and ran full scans of everything. The scans come up clean of viruses and trojans. The only things coming out of the spyware scanners are tracking cookies. Now remember, that there is one machine where svchost.exe is not eating up the cpu. Since all 4 computers are the same hardware, I ghosted the HDD from the machine without svchost.exe problems to the other 3. All three ghosted computers get the svchost.exe process eating up the cpu. So this is by no means some spyware/virus, I mean how could svchost not eat up the cpu in one machine, then be ghosted to the other three and eat up the cycles in the other three? There has to be something wrong with the Microsoft patches that somehow gets triggered in the other machines.

After uninstalling the update the machine is doing the same. I have the Automatic Update service disabled.

All cleared with a clean install and full updates. I do not know if Microsoft is deploying the new client via microsoftupdate, but after re-installing one of the machines that had the problem, applying all the updates and installing all the software, I was able to ghost that machine to the other two and they all now work correctly and are not wasting 99% of the Dual core E6600 cpus.

Unattended installs are definitively a must have with this kind of ridiculous problems that do not make sense. Thank you very much M$.

Don't know if anyone else has actually stated that Windows XP with Office 2003 causes these problems in the CPU util.

Using just "Windows Update" with Office 2003 does not cause any problems, however once changed to Microsoft Update the scanning engine takes FOREVER when Office 2003 components are installed. Just having Outlook 2003 (with the rest being Office XP or lower) causes slight issues. Using WSUS uses the MS Update scanning engines of course.

Having upgraded to Office 2007 (clean install) I no longer see the issues on about 10 of my machines. Not saying this a fix by any means, it would just seem MS screwed up on the Office 2003 scan engine.

I have also noted that the "fix" does make the systems at least responsive too.

In a troubling bit of nostalgia, a couple of my systems now have this symptom again.

This occurred after approving the most recent set of updates.

I've got 3 machines that all get the complete utilization of all resources by the svchost process running the wuauserv service.

These machines all have the latest MS patch ( from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932494 ) and have the 3.0 client installed.One of them is a machine that had the issue previously and was patched over a month ago (which resolved the issue at the time).

Currently, the MS suggestion is as follows:1) Set the Automatic Update service to manual via GPO2) Create a logon script that simply turns off the AU service (if it is on)Net stop wuauserv3) Create a logoff script to turn on the AU service when the user logs offNet start wuauserv

This is terrible, for the following reasons:1) its a hugely kludgy workaround2) once the SVCHOST problem has kicked in, it takes 10+ minutes for the service to stop when issued a net stop command.

My other options include un-approving all office updates on my WSUS server.

I may be able to resolve this by disabling Microsoft Update (reverting those particular machines back to Windows Update only).

from what i understand that this can be caused by both windows update and WSUS. i'm not sure if anyone else is having problems but this is what worked for me:

(i think deleting the temporary folder is all you really need to do but perhaps not).

1. Click Start->Run, type "services.msc" (without quotation marks) in the open box and click OK.2. Double click the service "Automatic Updates".3. Click on the Log On tab, please ensure the option "Local System account" is selected and the option "Allow service to interact with desktop" is unchecked.

4. Check if this service has been enabled on the listed Hardware Profile. If not, please click the Enable button to enable it.5. Click on the tab "General "; make sure the "Startup Type" is "Automatic". Then please click the button "Start" under "Service Status" to start the service.6. Repeat the above steps with the other service: Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)

1. Click on Start and then click Run,2. In the open field type "REGSVR32 WUAPI.DLL" (without quotation marks) and press Enter.3. When you receive the "DllRegisterServer in WUAPI.DLL succeeded" message, click OK.4. Please repeat these steps for each of the following commands:

After the above steps are finished. Since temporary folder of Windows Update may be corrupted. We can refer to the following steps to rename this folder that

1. Click Start, Run, type: cmd and press Enter. Please run the following command in the opened window.

net stop WuAuServ

(note, you might need to reboot before the net stop command will work)

2. Click Start, Run, type: %windir% and press Enter.3. In the opened folder, rename the folder SoftwareDistribution to SDold.4. Click Start, Run, type: cmd and press Enter. Please run the following command in the opened window.